MALD-X Advanced Air Launched Decoy Test Is a Bigger Deal Than It Sounds
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
Russia has proven unable to back up claims of its S-300/S-400 systems being able to intercept even the slowest of US cruise missiles (Tomawhawks are embarrassingly slow and high), so in practice, this probably WILL really confuse Russian systems.
People are catching on quickly to the fact that if they can keep our air assets out - they can keep America from projecting power. This has led to the proliferation of layered air-defense systems, etc. and the concept of "Anti Access/Area Denial".
It's often lamented that the best minds of our generation are spending their careers optimizing clicks on cat pictures.
However, I'm not sure that using advanced AI to kill people is much better. And given that this particular project is actually being publicized, it gives me the chills to speculate on what kinds of advanced AI is being developed in black projects.
I mean, imagine a pack of Boston Dynamics' agile robots running through the streets - equipped with a facial recognition database and a weapons platform.
bright minds worked in the US and other nuclear programs, included soviet ones, to keep geopolitical balance with minimum deaths. And with AI you want the brightest minds working on it: it doesn't matter how compassionate and good willed you are, there's always going to be another state actor willing to use it against you. And you can bet they'll employ their brightest. Assuming anything else is naive and suicidal.
Do current radar systems track a plane with enough frequency/detail to observe an aircrafts performance (turn rate, climb, speed, etc)?
I ask, because they claim to be matching an aircrafts electronic signature, which is fine. But if they're not also matching their performance envelope that seems like an easy way to identify the decoys. Though it still might take enough time to be a useful tool.
Is that a realistic threat? A peer-state adversary? Is it a legit concern the USA will need to enter into air combat against a country?
e.g. if the US Navy wasn't vastly superior, shipping routes would be constantly threatened
if you get to the point of being at actual peer level, you're past done. Look at China: they're still not there, and yet they're aggressively taking positions in the South China sea
This is aimed squarely at selling to allies and at projecting power in some random corner of the world that couldn't respond in kind even if they wanted to.
All the fancy tech all sides are parading is mostly for propaganda reasons. How useful is a drone that relies on GPS signals that to this day are easily spoofed or jammed? How useful is an ultra-expensive stealth fighter that's not invisible to enemy radar?
A war between peer-countries is not good for the wallet. Unlike small wars against enemies that are more likely to fling rocks at you [0]. Then you get the chance to equip your (also rock flinging) local allies with your tech, assist them in fighting, etc. For a price of course.
[0] relative power compared to big game military.
Military drones have already been hijacked using GPS spoofing so I'll be skeptic regarding the guidance system being bullet proof thanks to INS.
The way the US handles this threat is having an AWACS plane on each carrier providing over-the-horizon radar coverage and being able to guide its hypersonic anti-missile missiles to the approaching missiles in time. That, or getting its F/A-18Es in the air off of the carrier to intercept any incoming aircraft (not really a thing anymore).
https://gizmodo.com/nasa-wants-to-track-drones-using-cell-to...
Radar already does something similar to what you are suggesting, there are spread spectrum techniques that are much more jam/spoof-proof than just a constant ping or even a linear frequency sweep. You pseudo-randomly hop frequencies to avoid having someone broadcast a really strong signal at one frequency and to have someone be able to track your pattern of hopping. The pattern is generated similar to crypto, you start with a seed (the plaintext) and encrypt it with a key to get the pattern that you hop with.